Shivta Subeita
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The ancient city of Subeita, now known as Shivta, lies 55km/34mi southwest of Beersheba, on the south side of the road to the Egyptian frontier. Here can be seen the ruins, some of them astonishingly well preserved, of a Byzantine city of the fifth and sixth centuries, with three monastic churches, dwelling-houses, water cisterns and paved streets, which was still inhabited in Arab times.
History
Subeita, lying between Avdat and Nizzana, was built by Nabataeans in the first century B.C. An unfortified town, it was taken over by the Byzantines and so radically altered and rebuilt that the British archeologists who excavated the site in 1934 found no Nabataean but almost exclusively Byzantine remains.
In 2005 Shivta was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Incense Route and Desert Cities in the Negev.
History
Subeita, lying between Avdat and Nizzana, was built by Nabataeans in the first century B.C. An unfortified town, it was taken over by the Byzantines and so radically altered and rebuilt that the British archeologists who excavated the site in 1934 found no Nabataean but almost exclusively Byzantine remains.
In 2005 Shivta was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Incense Route and Desert Cities in the Negev.
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